How in the world could this have happened?!

It’s the middle of the night where you are but it’s early afternoon someplace else, where a group of angry customers is mounting an offensive against your brand. Negative videos have gone viral and a barrage of inflammatory tweets and Facebook posts are being hurled in your direction. Rage spills over to other social networks and influential bloggers are decimating your reputation. The social media crisis is quickly spreading, but you are silent.

Hashtags are increasingly important in social media marketing campaigns.

They enable content marketers get in front of their target audience and identify social media conversations that are relevant to their business. Only 24% of tweets include hashtags, but those that do receive twice the engagement of those without them. When used well, hashtags can be powerful tools that drive brand recognition, increase reach, build community, create buzz, and positively impact customer loyalty.

Successful content marketing initiatives have many moving parts.

Creating powerful content that grows your business can be a discouraging process. It’s possible to spend countless hours producing something to help your brand reach the next level, only to discover that it does little in the way of improving engagement, traffic, or sales. The good news is that there are many content marketing tools available to help you streamline the process.

Sharing content is an integral part of modern life.

We share more content from more sources with more people more quickly and more often than ever before. That’s quite a mouthful, but it’s true. This sharing activity is not about engaging with content but with other people, with content as the primary vehicle for that engagement. Sharing plays a vital role in information discovery and management. So how do you tap into this behavior and get your content in front of as many people as possible?

Customized content can help drive your prospects through the sales funnel and ultimately convert them to buyers.

But first, you need to understand your customers. Do they live in suburbs or in the city? Do they watch reality shows or PBS? Are they always online or are they oblivious to Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks? Where do they go for advice when they’re thinking about making a purchase?

These 10 social media marketing posts will help you hit the ground running in 2014!

I’d like to wrap up 2013 by sharing the posts on Pamorama that resonated the most with readers this year. This list is based on page visits and isn’t limited to articles I’ve published in 2013, since some of my older posts are still popular and helpful to brand marketers. I hope you learn something new that you can put to work in your marketing initiatives next year. Many thanks to all of you for reading and sharing my content!

Community breeds success on Facebook.

Without a community, you have no listeners to help you build brand awareness and deliver ROI. You must have a community filled with people who like you and share your content with their friends. Your goal shouldn’t be to merely increase the number of your Facebook Likes — it should be to attract quality fans from your target audience. Their activities, in the form of comments and endorsements, can increase your shares on Facebook.